Shamanism and information theory connections?

It has been brought to my attention that in this website refer to animism and shamanism as the religion of the future and what I came across in that issue of New Scientist, of 14 March 1998, in the article "Beyond reality" by Mark Buchanan.

"But now a growing band of physicists is putting forward a more alarming notion. They believe that information is a superweird new substance, more ethereal than matter or energy, but every bit as real and perhaps even more fundamental. For them, information is a kind of subtle substance that lies behind and beneath physical stuff. "Information is deeper than reality," says Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the University of Innsbruck".

Referring to information as a new substance, ethereal and fundamental, it brings right away notions about connections with what is proclaimed, in explaining the origins of animism and shamanism and by them almost all religions. In the conception of spirit as it has been used by almost every known religion.

Animism and shamanism, if we take them as the primary religions from which all other religions have sprung up, it bears a closeness with what, that growing band of physicists proclaim about the nature of information. Animism and shamanism, bearing more similarities than any other religion. The information and the spirit originating from the same source, and share similar features. Is it a biased to interpret a connection between these semingly non-similar concepts? It might and it might not. But the objective here is not to replace with one another, the symbols used to refer to these two thought products to stand for one another, or to invent another religion. It is primarily to notice what the persistent human endeavour to accumulate knowledge has brought forth. As the word spirit, ubiquitous and universal, refers to concepts connected with the objects of the world, in the same way information refers to the objects of the world in a similar manner. And they are both are referred to as ethereal and fundamental.

Of course the information theory and its ethereal nature is a gross generalisation from the rudimentary knowledge of information handling in quanta, the collective human mind has for this level of reality. A leap of imagination which however is allowed, as these leaps of imagination are what distinguishes creative and innovative approaches to problems faced by the human mind than by going by-the-book approaches.

One-track nature of mind

Awareness singly draws its attention to a specific stimulus and occupies itself in its computational processing ignoring other signals or stimuli or to put more correctly on a single aspect of the pattern formed by a given interface ignoring completely other aspects inherent in the interface which have useful information processing potential.

This comes out from the work of Chris Diorio and Rajesh P.N. Rao published in Nature magazine, June 2000 edition, where in their study of neural circuits in silicon they point out that neuronal networks exhibit nonlinear behaviour by selecting the strongest of an array of competing stimuli and suppressing the weaker ones referred to as distractors. The neuronal network further applies multiplicative responses to the selected stimulus amplifying its output activity. They refer to the linear amplification process as analogue and the nonlinear selection as digital. Neurons can have analogue and digital circuit responses. Behaviour that derives from a common set of active neurons is linear in the input, whereas behaviour that derives from a comparison (to effect selection) among different sets of active neurons (more than one stimulus, an aspect of an interface assisted pattern presented to the brain for processing) is nonlinear in the input.

The terms used in constructing the cognitive architecture, by A. J. Wells can easily be taken to represent the concepts of hardware and drives as he attempts the same extrapolation by referring as part of the structural make-up of the cognitive system aspects of the physical world which are not contiguous or coherent and also his architectures include elements which can be thought as processes rather than structural parts of a machine. The sense of architecture implied pertains to an image of a world coherent in conception but fragmented in perception. It might appear to our senses as being separate dissociated fragmented but these fragmented parts are other than fragmented, they are parts of a greater whole intrinsically connected to each other to perform the tasks, functions which the brain understands and undertakes. It approaches Stuart Kaufman's unified reality view, of the world.

Suffice to add that the stimulus selected for processing is determined by the individual as a result of previously learned processes biased towards an individual's needs and wants conditioned in ways the individual has formed its personality make-up.

Concepts, concept development, reflex actions and emerging behaviour patterns

Concepts, as they develop in an individual gradually become rigid and inflexible, ossified structures, driven by the necessity, in the individual, to efficiently tackle life events of a repetitive nature. This is exacerbated by the singleness of awareness, meaning that our mind can only process a single item at a time. Efficiency demands for the mind to establish reflex actions to process repetitive life tasks.

As the reflex arc develops, includes concepts and their attributes, branching out into a network by virtue of the common attributes among concepts, alongside with associated tools or mechanisms required to process the inclusive concepts and attributes. The tools and mechanisms will include the words symbols specific to a concept and syntax rules for assembling the words into meaningful sentences, pertained and defined by the culture from which the words have sprung up.

The network of concepts and associated tools form structures of schemata as it is mentioned in Cognitive Psychology textbooks. The network of concepts further associate itself with emotional social mechanisms which altogether assemble in emerged behaviour patterns. This emerging pattern of behaviour is brought forward and asserts itself each time the associated network of concepts is summoned by events in the every day life of an individual and as it is rigid, a reflex action, it will continue to submerge unchanged.

To change a certain pattern of behaviour the individual has to work on the underlying network of concepts. To enrich already existing concepts with new attributes, to amend, to add the attributes or introduce new concepts altogether. This will be taken up by the brain/mind which it will form new reflex actions and finally new emerging behaviour patterns.

Language is just the tool, in the path for achieving meaning within ourselves. Nothing more.

There is a question in the Responses to Miscellaneous Questions of Eric Faragher website of "Philosophy Articles For Debate", discussing about what constrains and defines the possible. It is not the actual question that concerns me, as much as what has been said in the attempt to give an answer to the question.

I got in a state of confusion, unease and helplessness as both participants' arguments muddied the meaning I should have arrived by following their discussion. At that sort of state I 'left' their discussion.

When I 'returned' the first thing that came to my mind were the words, symbolic systems. referring to Godel's incompleteness theorem, mentioned by Eric Faragher:

"I think Godel's point is that all symbolic systems which attempt to be comprehensive, will eventually produce a paradoxical contradiction, due to the very nature of comprehensive symbolic systems."

I found most of Eric's and Mike's arguments writhed with paradoxical contradictions, which I blamed for feeling confused and disorientated. I suspect both participants, as well as any other individual following the discussion feel likewise. At a lot younger age I felt an uncomfortable numbness at the back of my head, whenever I contemplated about infinity, universe and other similar stuff, something along the lines of, I cannot compute. A feeling of unease disturbed the balance of my mind.

I would rephrase Eric's introduction about philosophy as being boring, to philosophy as being confusing, perplexing and finally becoming scary for a great number of people.

All these feelings, nagging side-effects while individuals attempt to arrive to meaningful assertions about themselves and for their own sake, as this is what it boils down. Meaning belongs in our own heads only and nowhere else. We are not building some "objective" imaginary world but our very own world, alas with a tool, language, that is not as perfect as we think it is.

Godel's point applies foremost for language itself, a purely symbolic system in a vain attempt to be comprehensive, and as Eric points out, it is bound to end up into paradoxical contradictions. Someone should stick to language, as far as the words, the symbols used, serve their purpose, in achieving meaning, and then words should be discarded, thrown away. To follow where they lead you, to be comprehensive, it will not produce anything meaningful. It would lead to a structure which would not have anything to do with reality, it would distort reality and you will end up confused and disillusioned.

Achieving meaning for one's own sake, it is not, to solve the mysteries of the world for human kind, but to achieve meaning for yourself and that is as far as the use of complex language should go. Once you achieve meaning for yourself, whatever that is, you let yourself off language. Overindulgence in language as well as, overindulgence in what philosophers in the past said, quoting to the letter or to the last comma, like they were the holy scriptures or something similar, would only lead in perplexing, meaningless outcomes and would not confer to the meaning one makes of the world.

Making the familiar strange

In the synectics pdf they mention that

"to make the familiar strange is to distort, invert, or transpose the everyday ways of looking and responding which render the world a secure and familiar place."

We make the world a secure and familiar place by the concepts we hold and cherish, the content of our consciousness, that finally make meaningful our selves, the people around us, the whole world. Concepts are abundantly provided by family, neighbourhood, town, city, nation, country, school, workplace, religion and so on.

You distort, invert, transpose the concepts upon which your consciousness is based. It is a mental exercise where single or multiple concepts are questioned. Their correctness and validity is doubted. It can also be connected to a particular problem seeking solution.

In the same document it is mentioned

"It is a conscious attempt to achieve a new look at the same old world, people, ideas, feelings, and things."

Such an exercise is bound to change our consciousness conceptual content. It could lead to a new viewpoint. We might see our selves, the people around us, the world in a new light.

Redundant concepts? What for?

I read in a website:

"First, I will give some putative examples of A-consciousness without P-consciousness. If there could be a full-fledged phenomenal zombie, say a robot computationally identical to a person, but whose silicon brain did not support P-consciousness, that would do the trick. I think such cases conceptually possible, but this is very controversial. (See Shoemaker, 1975, 1981)"

A case that is conceptually possible. It gives a clue about the act of arguing a case. To describe nature you employ concepts. You built a structure, a conceptual structure used to explain the phenomenon. The concepts used should bear a direct relationship with what is observed in the phenomenon. If you use more concepts than are necessary, you built a cumbersome conceptual structure which exceeds the conceptual capacity of the phenomenon itself. Redundant concepts? What is their use? The thought caries on, I would say gets carried away. A construct. I would say an artificial construct. As if language has assumed a life of its own. It can go on and on.

What was that I came across just earlier on, in another website?

"Most successful explanations explain complicated phenomena in terms of simpler ones."


It is like maths. The mathematical language which it can go on and on, as it should satisfy hundreds of clauses and conditions, which are deemed necessary. With ifs, as ifs, and ifs and ifs and iffs ....., it can continue on and on to infinity. It has to be rigorous. I wonder. What for?

The same goes on in other disciplines too. New concepts are invented daily. Such disdain for simple, robust concepts. To add on to already existing concepts, by enriching their content. Depth and not girth. In a quest to conceptualize more and more obscure ideas, which instead of clarifying a field it makes it muddier than ever. End up communicating to each other in ever smaller circles.

The fractal reality concept combined with the concept of multiple universes. A thought.

Researchers abiding to the branch of process physics, in a paper titled "Process Physics: Modelling Reality as Self-Organising Information" they put forward the concept of three-dimensional fractal process-space.

Reality being organised as a fractal development, visualized as a Mandelbrot set of self-similar objects as you descent down to smaller scales, with ever increasing detail, a trademark of chaotic system developments.

Fractal dimensions using up space as efficiently as it can ever be. Giving another scope in thinking about the concept of time?

From the number 0 to the number 1 you can fit an infinity of numbers. An infinity of fractal dimensions? And in the midst of these fractal dimensions an infinity of fractal worlds, an infinity of multiple universes?

Each of the fractal worlds a universe? The whole fractal construct the entire reality? And all this development materialised from a simple self-referential equation? Reality a result of the development of a self-referential function?

Taking a journey to another fractal world, a universe in itself hidden right next to our own familiar world among the multiplicity of myriad fractal dimensions. Disipating energy as you delve deeper into reality's fractal development?

Thoughts about reality, a process space

Reality as a field of processes with the processes in living organisms being part of it. A mathematical bed where the living organism unfolds its life cycle as part of the processes undergoing.

It acts as a unit, a unit made out of processes. At each particular moment the processes that determine its behaviour are based on the neurons. The neurons have the ability to communicate and co-ordinate the responses of the unit to the surrounding processes. A particular response is one of a repertoire of responses the unit has already laid for. As the neurons respond to any changes in the physical quantities, variable quantities, that drive processes, in and out of the living unit. Variable quantities that their values fall within the range, of other processes that monitor their outcome, picked up by an allocated group of neurons, connect processes together. Trigger sophisticated calculations. Mathematical processes at work.

Processes bound to act together. They are in accord with each other. Conjugated? Coupled? Connected? What is the significance of that? Each of the processes involved is affected by another. A function connection. An dependency connection within the unit, and not only, as it is also connected with the surrounding processes.

If there was not a connected network of processes in the unit then any effect exerted by the surrounding processes would meet with a passive response, a result of inertia by gravity, or electromagnetic transaction or other.

But the living unit reacts energetically, is responsive. It is not a passive reaction it is an energetic reaction. It is a conscious reaction? How else can we describe this concerted action of processes working together?

May be we can get to name them by mentioning what it can be accomplished by this concerted action of these processes in living things. Or do we have to look at the processes at lower levels as well, even to quantum levels? Looking at it in a hierarchical perspective. Lower and higher levels.

Our neurons chart the space we unfold our actions in

I read in New Scientist magazine, the "Guess what I'm calculating ... Simple genius" cover story of 20th of June 1998 edition, the research of Bill Kristan and John Lewis on the neurons of simple organisms. They concluded that a leech, using only 40 or so neurons,

"can add and subtract, compute sines and cosines and manipulate trigonometric identities ..."

So, in accord with nature, neurons, the unit that builds up the structures of our awareness, consciousness and every mental ability we possess, are able to do complicated procedures, our conscious mind is ignorant of.

And it goes further

"Using neurons with overlapping receptive fields allows you to process space as a continuum",

So neurons collectively chart our surrounding space. Their collective activity, the collective firing patterns of populations of neurons encodes the information about the space we are in, even before that information about their enclosing space is even used. The collaborative nature of the neurons makes it possible to collate all the information that individual neuron groups gather, in the manner described above, overlapping. Each neuron group records space from co-ordinates within the range of presumably adjacent group of neurons.

Our neural arsenal have already built a chart of the space and presumably some element of time and it is there for our consciousness to use and guide our awareness. Is that a way to explain the phenomena of gestalt and blindsight? But even if our consciousness is unable or unwilling to, it would make no difference, things will be taken care off. The concerted efforts of all the neurons in our brain will find a solution. The problem is when our consciousness interferes and meddles with the careful approach our neurons concerted efforts have provided.

And that

"go a long way towards explaining why so many creatures seem to have an almost hard-wired sense of trigonometry."

Bill Kristan says.

Mach's principle provide the foundations of a unified whole where consciousness is embedded in

"Mach’s Principle can be viewed as an entire universe being altered by changes in a single particle ..... or perhaps more aptly, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Peru causing rains in Kansas".

I have been thinking about Mach's Principle as having a connection with the way I picture consciousness in my mind, but other issues were competing hard their case, muddling up the landscape and as a result from the whole argument developed in my mind what was left was just the name, Mach's Principle, connections once there cut. However its glimpse is still there, tiny for that matter, but still a seed capable of causing hurricanes.

It is what I thought about the uncanny ability of our imagination traversing the universe,(or universes alike) reality. In an instant. What is behind our nurtured notions of ego, to be the world, our very own world, the beginnings of our consciousness in our infantile minds, the inner workings of a solipsist mind. Mach's principle portraying that notion. The single particle altering the entire universe, the infinitesimal flapping of the butterfly's wings in a deep connection that surpasses the furthest boundaries imagined.

I read about "autism, stems from an inability to project outside one's own head ... yet autistics ... often display exceptional talents at math and pattern recognition". Has the mind of autistic individuals still embedded, deeply connected to a world, as described by Mach's principle, in that huge bed of processes that mathematical substrate from which consciousness springs out of? Their prowess at math and pattern recognition show the connections consciousness has with the processes weaving the fabric of reality? Showing us what lies around us? What do we have to pay attention to? And at the same time hint to where we should focus our efforts to understand consciousness?

Thoughts about the origins of imagination?

Depending on the difference in speed between the observer and the object under observation, space starts to either shrink or expand and time starts to slow down or speed up.

Why this statement stopped me in my tracks? Is it because I realise that this is something new. A new experience which I have to assimilate and fit in and at the same time re-arrange what is already there so I will accept what I regard as new?

Do I see something relevant to consciousness? This interplay of shrinking and expanding space as well as slowing down and speeding up time, as it is affected by the difference in speed between the observer and the object of observation? If somehow the fundamental forces, consciousness relies upon, are delicately influenced by speed differences. What would be the implications on the way the mind perceives phenomena? As these will undergo space shrinking or expanding actions or slowing down or speeding up time actions?

And that notion I thought about consciousness as a being a force? Is that notion relevant with the thoughts you develop now? These changes implicated by speed differences will distort the view of reality, as both space and time are influenced by. Shrinking to the quantum level, expanding to cosmos, slowing down to Planck time speeding up to eons, journeying back and forth to the beginning and the end of time? The foundations of imagination? Are there no bounds?
In relativistic terms?

"Local reality is violated in the quantum world". What does this mean?

Past thoughts unearthed form where they were buried.

local reality is violated in the quantum world, what does this mean? What are the implications of such a statement? The glossary entry ( see Reference?) refers to realism1 as

"the idea that a particle has properties that exist even before they are measured",

and consequently observed. We refer to the world around us as reality, we say the real world. That means the world has properties that exist even before they are measured, observed by us. That the objects, that make up the world, have properties that exist even before they are measured, observed by us. What is the connection between properties and existence? Does existence requires properties to assume itself , to manifest itself? The attributes of the objects that existence is made up of, that together make up the concepts, the information.

Consciousness-existence, as defined by Kaufman, the whole which through the myriad yin-yang like processes has produced the diversity of existence we experience, observe.

If realism is violated literally that means either that

"a particle has not got properties that exist before it is measured, observed"

or that

"a particle has properties that do not exist before it is measured, observed"

or put in other words,

"particles do not have properties and they attain properties only when they are observed, we observe them"2,

from the 'either' statement;

and

"particles properties exist because they are observed, we observe them",

from the 'or' statement.

Both versions accept that there are particles. The first version says that particles do not have properties, they do not have size, no dimensions, no form and they acquire dimensions form size when we observe them. The second version says that particles have properties, they have size, dimensions and form but these properties do not exist, and they are only brought into existence after they are observed, we observe them. Is there any difference between the two statements? Particles without properties acquiring them later and particles with properties that do not exist. Exist for whom? For us? Is existence a fabrication? Something that has been invented to nurture our cherished ego, to signify our importance in the world, among its other objects? May be all these boils down to observation. As when observed either, particles, without properties, acquire properties, or, particles, with properties, are brought into existence. What is observation? What is measurement?
#

1 while reality, in the example of entangled particles which allow Alice and Bob to obtain the same result when they both measure independently the polarisation of their photon part of the entangled photon pair, requires that there must be some element in the physical world that allows Alice to know Bob's results. The element, required by reality, is the carrier of the process, the reality aspect; and the process, by which the entangled photons arrange their quantum states, refer to the locality aspect where the speed of light provides the basis for the process, as it entails that no physical action can instantly go from Alice to Bob.

Are Feynman's advanced and retarded waves an answer to this dilemma? Do these waves demand an extension of the currently conceived boundaries of reality and locality alike? Is a re-think of the dimension of time, imperative in reaching a fuller understanding of reality and locality? Future and past, two concepts we use to comprehend time. By themselves abstract, in construction, defining the process, used from the aspect of processes and not of the carriers of processes. Though when referring to spacetime, time assumes qualities of "volume", acquires "substance", becomes "tangible", but as yet elusive. Can the advanced and retarded waves give a new insight to the concept of spacetime? To provide a basis upon which to build its infrastructure. The relationships inherent, in the spacetime level presumably underlying reality, our reality; which determine its build-up. Relationships that by themselves are non-local and non-real, but together (assembling in a whole?) give rise to local and real phenomena, to reality and locality. And the advanced and retarded waves, as they have been described by Feynman, to be used to define these relationships and as such the spacetime infrastructure. From the conception of a "frozen" universe with time loosely defined as another dimension in par with the other three spatial dimensions, the conception of advanced and retarded waves should be used to enhance further the "spatial" quality of time, the "dimensionality" of time. To explore possible implications in spacetime infrastructure.
#

2 Existence attains an anthropic quality. The concept is realised as a result of action, a re-action feedback input, of a subject. A subject brings about existence, by its actions.

The collapse?

So many new ideas coming across in these couple of pages of Julian Jaynes paper. Bringing along so many new thoughts. I need to let them time to settle in my mind, assimilate themselves, fit, adjust without bothering me. Bother my consciousness, my senses my awareness. Let them go about, and do whatever stuff they do, and let them come back to me,(M(m)y conscious self?), whenever they are ready. In the meantime let us amuse ourselves.

This thing about collapse was going around my mind. Let's see whether Schroedinger's cat is dead or alive. Collapse what? The quantum uncertainty? It is being some time since I bothered about quantum phenomena and it is harder to pull the relevant concepts. The memory loops, the synapses, have weakened, not as resilient as they used to be.

Och well, at least they are there.

The Fibonacci number sequence and space bound by hyper-dimensional objects

Volume is defined as "the measure of space taken up by a three-dimensional object". As for example the space bound by a cube which is three-dimensional and is measured in cubic centimetres (cm³) units. But what about the space bound by a four-dimensional object, a tesseract or hypercube. Can we use the same term, volume, to define the space bound? Since the space bound by a tesseract is four-dimensional and not three-dimensional falls out of the boundaries prescribed by the prevailing definition for volume.

In order to get an idea about the space bound by hyper-dimensional objects, we can apply the same simple rules we use to find the space bound by a cube, namely multiply the area times the height of an adjacent side, and for a unit cube you get,

                                           1 cm² X 1 cm = 1 cm³

the unit for measuring volume, the cubic centimetre (cm³).

By applying the same rule in a tesseract, which has six cube sides, we multiply the volume of one side times the area of an adjacent cube side, so the unit tesseract has

                                           1 cm³ X 1 cm² = 1 cm⁵

the quintic centimetre (cm⁵). The measurement unit of four-dimensional space?

By applying the same rule for a penteract, which has tesseracts as sides, we multiply the space bound by a tesseract (cm⁵) times the volume of the cube side of an adjacent tesseract (cm³), so the unit penteract has

                                           1 cm⁵ x 1 cm³ = 1 cm⁸

So centimetre to the power of 8 (cm⁸), the measurement unit of five-dimensional space?

Continuing on for a hexeract, which has penteracts as sides, the unit for six-dimensional space is (cm¹³).

By looking at the powers of the units of measurement from the known three dimensions to the hyper dimensions, namely length (cm), surface (cm²), volume (cm³) to four-dimensional (cm⁵), five-dimensional (cm⁸) and six-dimensional (cm¹³), …

the sequence 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 is the Fibonacci numbers sequence.

.. hyper-dimensions ..their evolution ..spiral ..

.. spiral systems .. that the longer they extend ..they become frail ..wither and die .. 

.. as they have been observed ..in nature .. (Goethe) ..

.. hyper-dimensions ..have limits ..do not exist beyond these limits .. may ..up to 5 ..penteracts ..

.. and these limits ..can be surmised ..by looking at the limits of ..nature's spiral systems ..

Do ideas pre-exist?

"Although it is widely conceded that the problems infants show in acquiring correct speech are primarily
motor control problems rather than perceptual problems, there has been little effort to develop a coherent theory of acquisition of speech motor control," excerpt from the announcement of a discovery of The University of Texas at Austin researchers about the origins of speech.


What does that mean? Is perception irrelevant to speech acquisition? If we accept that what separates correct from non-correct speech is due to differences in motor control mechanics than a developed perception of the environment, this might be taken as a hint towards the idea, that concepts and ideas, for which the speech among other forms of expression facilitate, pre-exist irrespective of the development of the particular mode of expression, the thought process included.

Ideas being transcendental. Plato's far-off realm where ideas exist independently of anyone who may have thought of them. The inheritance through reminiscence from a previous state of existence. If perception is dis-associated from acquiring and developing speech, this assumption points toward the thought that ideas are not the refined products of our sensuous or sensory faculties. We do not need to proceed via the percepts to concepts pathway. We might gradually acquire a grasp of concepts and ideas as our speech and other forms of exploring our surroundings develop, but ideas and concepts pre-exist. The mind which we develop being the product of the process to which our brain is engaged to, as it acts as the conduit that connects our consciousness with the transcendental realm of ideas.

We arrive to knowledge already there, which might have been there even before the dawn of humanity.

Brain, the conduit

The brain is the conduit tuned to these special kind of waves that confer to the carrier its special qualities. Evolution has produced in its development the human brain with the right size and the right structure that made possible the connection with a plane of existence alien with its surrounding world.

Introducing chaos into our lives. Its creative potential.

"The complexity increases when multiple copies of the basic mechanisms are allowed"
Post it as an incentive to pursue that line of thought. What can a basic mechanism be and how can this affect or bring chaos in an individual's life? A mechanism in an individual's life can be a habit, a norm followed, a routine. A prescribed reaction to a situation or circumstance the individual comes upon while at work or at home or during recreation. So if a routine is a mechanism, with its very own transition function, the algorithm that tells us what to do in each step of the mechanism adopted in the routine. The multiple copies of these routines is what defines our contact with other people in our surroundings, and become multiples as they are repeated in every encounter with other people. It builds an element of consistency and increases the complexity. Let's follow the thought. Increasing the complexity it means we have an extended substrate to respond to incoming inputs. That we have a ready made output for almost every input possible. To build multiple copies of a routine you would be required to open your circle and meet more and more people, with whom you will exercise your routine and multiply it. Get involved. Multiple copies then complexity increases.
Extracts from John H. Holland which will provide a lead to tackle this problem. I quote: p.128, "Within this setting, it is the interaction of the mechanisms that generates complex, organised behaviour." And "Still, the interactions provide possibilities not easily anticipated by inspection of the individual mechanisms." And "links can be made and broken ... changing the underlying geometry." On p.76 "Learning in complex environments requires a defined procedure from discerning early actions that set up later, obviously good responses" and "In multiagent environments, emergent phenomena often arise from the anticipation of the actions of other agents" and "This ability to generate extreme complexity from simple specifications is daunting because it assures that complexity will be pervasive in the world around us. At the same time, it gives hope that we can find simple rule-governed models of that complexity. Generated complexity is essential to emergence .." One thing to do is define the state space that encompasses all the states possible that has to do with an individual's personality and character. By doing so that will determine the available states as they are defined by the individual's traits, these be physical, mental emotional, psychological and will determine the trajectory of states in the tree of states. We expect to have more than mechanism that are responsible for bringing out the succession of states. Still we expect that these would be few and simple to describe.
A factor that should be considered as becoming potentially one of the mechanisms employed by an individual, and involved in the interactions allowed between the mechanisms are expressed as ulterior motives, which usually are alien to the traits of the given individual and compromises the fidelity of expression as demanded by he individual's traits and are detrimental in its conduct with other individuals.

The multiple copies of these routines, the basic mechanisms, as they are carried out by every individual, finally give rise to cultures. But the point is how to connect this with an individual's life. Each would probably follow a routine. That is right. And now what? you mean that this routine should be reiterated, multiple copies. Ye, you do that. So?

Thoughts about rules and their universal application

The following extracts from John H. Holland's "emergence, from chaos to order" book grabbed my attention and triggered thoughts in my mind. I quote from p.126: "translate the notion of rule (e.g. the rule of jumping in checkers, or Hebb's rule) into the notion of mechanism" and "as with rules for games, or laws for a physical system, mechanisms will be used as the defining elements of the system".
In a likewise manner rules and the mechanisms derived hold for the events that determine our lives. Rules that extend from the laws legislated in parliaments to the highway code, to codes of conduct in almost every establishment, companies, hospitals, universities, schools and even unwritten rules, the rules that define the conduct of individuals in respect to other individuals as well as their immediate environment. I feel compelled that I should find a guide to make sense out of them, analyse them, using techniques such as meta-knowledge, knowledge about knowledge as the definition prescribes, which I see it as an introspection on the effects each rule has on our lives and in the lives of other individuals around us and the surrounding environment. Questions to be answered would be 'Why did I do that?', 'For what purpose?', 'How did that affect me?', 'How did affect people around me?', 'How did it affect the place I live in?' Answers to questions along these lines, will help in defining our responses, the mechanisms we employ while we apply the rules that abide to the particular environment we find ourselves in. The end result would be, to avoid being a user, and the following states elaborate the term user; a feeling of being dragged along, helpless pawn, overwhelmed by the circumstances, caught unaware, left baffled, unprepared. Instead develop educated responses which will enable a better understanding of the motives behind our actions and the actions of the people that surround us.
An obstacle in such an attempt has to do with the enormous amount of information that we have to deal with, which is apparent to us as chaos and the situations as chaotic, we have to bear in mind that as John H. Holland proclaims "the mechanisms allowed are few in kind and simple to describe". So by continuously sorting out the rumble that we come across in our every day lives, we will be able to define the elements, the simple mechanisms that bide the systems we live in, our code of behaviour and conduct with other individuals in our surroundings, and become immune to ways alien to our character and personality, to adopt a coherent mode of life.

Raw ideas, grab them as they come

I was thinking earlier on, of what I have been exposed during the day before, all the pieces of information that entered my mind and the reactions they triggered within me. The German anatomist guy with the plastination of human corpses, though not about the plastination process itself but the establishment of the factory for plastinising corpses in, as it was called, a German (economically and otherwise) deprived area.

It struck me bad the existence in a flourishing Germany, of people that could not have jobs and as a result their neighborhoods were run down and the people themselves led restricted lives. No doubt the German economy as a whole is not run down and there are other areas which are flourishing and the people there lead better lives. These disparate effects, a result of what is driven into the minds of individuals about getting rich, to have more than you need, even if you do not know what to do with it, economies built on excess. Just put it into coffers and let it lie there.

Politicians flood our memory registers with messages about thriving economies. Economies based on deep-rooted structures of convergence-divergence; converging wealth to gradually fewer and fewer people and diverging misery to ever larger populations.

Growth in thriving economies introduce discrepancies in wealth distribution. Takings and people benefiting, follow opposite trajectories, while takings diverge, individuals benefiting converge. Less and less people enjoy the benefits of a thriving economy.

The radio blared in this unsolicited advert of a named company that promises their customers and whoever is interested on their wares, that it will create property millionaires. I find it disgusting, vile, they should not be allowed to. It is a disease and should be avoided and if not they should carry warnings, in the same way cigarette packs carry.

Like "Adhering to this message would cause serious harm to society, to the people around you, to your environment. It would push property prices sky high and would drive to misery thousand of your fellow citizens".

These kind of adverts should never be run, by any form of media.

Handles-tags drag along thoughts from our minds

Trying to find a point, an edge or to use a word more modern, a tag to unravel the thoughts connected. It is what I have come across while I was reading about cognitive arrangements. Cognition describing the organization of knowledge structures in our minds. The concepts, ideas and thoughts that we have amassed and how we make use of them. I must have written something about them. All of these knowledge structures tangled up, chaotic arrangements I dare say, (I am still struggling to trace the word I am looking for), and by pulling on a specific feature you drag along the concept or concepts attached. All the concepts dragged they have specific or nonspecific connections with the feature that dragged them.
It is obvious from the above that once a concept is brought into our attention, specifically or non-specifically, it is scrutinized by our rational mechanisms for all its associated features and the feature responsible for dragging it. As a result, the concept is adapted to accommodate the new feature. A new arrangement is achieved, a new configuration depicting a new state of the world. That increases the arsenal of concepts held in storage in our brains and improves our capacity to assess the states the world daily presents to us, by being able to discern even more subtle differences between the states presented.
Oh fuck, I got the word I was looking for. Handle. Handles to grab on and drag along the whole concept. Handle being one of the features associated with any particular concept. Any feature in a concept, thought, notion or idea can act like a handle. Taking it further, it could even bring forth feelings, sensations, fears and body responses since all these are organised in the same manner with features tagging along chains of associated responses and can act as handles. So, similarly they are dragged along in our conscious mind whenever a specific or non-specific handle is grabbed on.
Now I come across, that very same mechanism of a handle in that del.icio.us website. The tags, like handles, drag along a host of websites that share this particular feature, the tag. The chain of websites dragged, specifically or non-specifically connected with the tag-feature, are presented in chaotic arrangements. And, in a similar manner, as it happens in our minds, we would expect that the feature-tag that dragged along all these new websites will bring out new arrangements, new configurations, re-modeling the world states we store in our minds, adapted into new knowledge structures, hopefully improved.

Understanding PageRank

It plays a central role in many of google's web search tools, based on a search algorithm and networking of thousands, probably unaware of, desktop PCs. It might even be mine for that matter, not that anybody should complain about it. It follows google's claimed philosophy that searches are designed to provide end-users with helpful and accurate results, which we can accept in general terms.
It makes use of web's vast link structure to determine the value of an individual webpage. A link from page A to page B is regarded as a vote for page B, by page A. That explains the large size of blog pages where the indicator bar in the scroll bar almost faints to obscurity. So there are a lot more links in a blog as the number of posts increase with time and the more posts the more the links. Moreover all, these little cute links from the bookmarking companies at the end of each post, would add to the number of links built over time. Finally that probably defines the effort put by each of the bloggers as painstakingly built bit by bit over time their number of links.
The next thing is about the weight attributed to the "votes" of some A pages to B pages. Namely, pages with a high pagerank, therefore "important" (the quotes are google's, as probably it feels guilty as their pledge about their loyalty to end-users is watered down a bit), weigh more heavily than other pages with lower rank. The whole thing boils down that the whole enterprise is primarily commercial. We need to make money, if we don't then the whole thing will not run at all. There won't be any web at all if the profits do not roll in, though we do need both, the money and the knowledge that WWW spreads around, and it is only hoped (as far as I could tell we can only hope) that people that run google and other services do not get greedy.
The next lines should be analysed carefully because, it determines how google suppose to serve end-users, the public, and understand their philosophy, namely the PageRank algorithm. It is claimed that they employ sophisticated text-matching techniques, (sophistry?) to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. What can I say? Usually sophistry's attempts, are like philosophy, though not in substance but in form. The text-matching techniques most likely gives the impression the search for the end-user is relevant but whether is important or not, this is a matter for a wishing well. The end-user is the sole judge whether the search returned important results and the vague nature of criteria for relevancy, pose an enormous uncertainty value that it would be impossible for any algorithm to calculate therefore this allegation by google is an empty letter, devoid of meaning.
So the text-matching is based primarily upon the number of times a term appears on a page. So, what does that mean? A term in a page that is repeated, and it is the term that an end-user has put a query for? Can that repetition be mechanical, beyond the meaning conferred by the including passage? According to google. No. Google goes far beyond the number of times the term appears on a page. It examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for the query. Oh well, quite vague statement, which verges to the point to claim that this algorithm of theirs somehow has human qualities and can anticipate your mind.
The whole thing boils down that google's rise is a result of winning in a competition with strictly commercial criteria and in doing so it has neglected and continues to neglect individual enterprise an aspect which quickly has been taken up from services like technorati and the like. It is a matter of you can not have your eyes in too many pies.

Nature use chaos to get out of sticky points

Nature uses chaotic methods to deal with crises in any of its domains, in fact reality or anything yet unimagined realm of existence employ chaos to produce novel states upon which future evolutions can have a go. Each of us will benefit from knowledge of chaotic processes, and consciously or intuitively will facilitate the evolution of future states in almost everything that touches us.

Observer influenced behaviour.

It concerns self-censorship, the plagiarism construct and the flow of ideas. I was thinking about it, this morning as I was trying to explain or justify, what I felt were the reasons behind the launch of the “Draft chaos” blog. I have put it down to the incessant procrastination in publishing posts I thought of, succumbing to a nagging self-censorship drive as I felt posts were falling short of ...standards... wanted to present …. Present what? And to who? (Well that is another matter, leave it for now.) To fulfill some standards? Standards for whom? The only standards I need to adhere to, are standards set by me, answer to me and me alone. I piece together ideas and I have to answer for them. I, only, know the contents of my mind and I am the only expert to confer judgment upon their validity. I, possess the failsafe mechanisms which will make sure that what I air, satisfies my common sense, and by that, general common sense at large.

Does that reek of Skinner and behaviourism? Is that selfish and egocentric? Oh the hell, the whole thing branches out for ever. It goes beyond of what I indented it to be when I started.

Measure Lyapunov exponents

28052007 MON

Note in 12052007 SAT 1105 brings the idea to use vs. in title for "Our linear vs. non-linear lives". Use the idea of dissipation of energy from the large scales down the small scales in James Gleick Chaos book...

0802 Chaos page 115. Becoming familiar with the concept of self-similarity. Early sense, an organising principle, limitations on the human experience of scale, how to imagine the very great and very small, the very fast with the very slow, but as extensions of the known? Human vision extended by telescopes and microscopes. New discoveries were realisations that change of scale brought new phenomena and new kinds of behaviour. This statement should go along in a discussion of hierarchical system organisation that each system within another has its own phenomena and behaviour which are revealed as we change scale but are self-similar as the organising principle.
0813 Continued: the process for particle physics has never ended. Accelerators as they increase in energy and speed extend science's field of view to tinier particles and briefer time scale and every extension bring new information.
0817 Continued: the parallel trend in science of reductionism. Break things apart and look at them one at a time. The power of self-similarity begins at much greater levels of complexity. It is a matter of looking at the whole. Avoid reducing the complexity when you examine a system, leave the complexity intact and apply self-similarity on the whole and not the parts.

0823 Always when we examine a factor be that a condition or a feature we should make certain we examine from the perspective of the part and its connections with the whole, leave its connections with the whole intact and examining applying self-similarity.
Transfer knowledge the information from other disciplines other systems and applies it to explain the phenomena from the known perspective.

0830 James Gleick page 117. Statements for art. How we perceive art.

0833 Gleick page 260. Struck gold, Shaw’s view that chaotic and near-chaotic systems bridged the gap between the macroscales and microscales. Chaos was the creation of information.
0844 Developing a basic argument to justify learning. Displaying the connections with chaos going along my personal experience, my
practice followed as a father and a powerful argument against the uneducated prevailing attitudes about the importance of school education. Quoting Packard, which I have to find his whereabouts, talking about thought processes, complicated systems that generate information. Information created and stored in our structure. In the development of one person's mind from childhood.

0854 a full circle and back to the task set for the day. Inserting a deeper concept in the chaosandorder project. I have to assimilate in the text.



0856 Lyapunov: page 253, a way of measuring the conflicting effects of stretching, contracting and folding in the phase space of an attractor. Finding regions that lead to stability and instability in the phase space of an attractor. Talking about phase space it
means the whole of the space a system unfolds its processes, the encompassing environment? Not the physical environment the process space that in human life systems is the ideas thoughts contained in cultures and its manifestations the events driven by culture. This is the phase space of the attractor and there the Lyapunov exponents are applied to provide a way of measuring the conflicting effects of stretching, contracting, and folding to determine what properties of a system would lead to stability or instability.

0916 Lyapunov continued: Exponents values above zero positive nearby points separate. Stretching. Instability? Values below zero negative nearby points converge. Contracting. Stability? A fixed-point attractor all Lyapunov exponents negative. Contraction. The direction of the pull inward towards the final steady state. Stability then. Negative values, contraction stability. Positive values, stretching, points diverge, instability. A strange attractor had to have at least one positive Lyapunov exponent.

0928 The Lyapunov idea developed in the most practical ways. Measure Lyapunov exponents and relate them to other important properties. How some systems can create disorder (instability) in one direction while remaining trim and methodical (stability) in another direction. Direction provided as a result of changing values in the variables defining features and conditions. Using Lyapunov analysis to determine contraction or stretching, convergence or divergence, stability or instability.



0937 Lyapunov exponents: (Oh where will I stop). Page 255. What happened to a tiny cluster of nearby points-representing initial conditions-on a strange attractor as the system evolved in time. Nearby points on a strange attractor? What is the significance of this? Has the strange attractor need to be defined first? Does it only apply to points on the strange attractor or the whole of its phase space? It should apply to all the points the main prerogative being to be nearby. Points anywhere in any given neighbourhood and applying Lyapunov analysis to determine whether they will diverge or converge. It is expected that if they are found outside the attractor they would certainly diverge. The most interesting objective to look for is when while on the attractor, therefore stable whether they will diverge or converge. We can accept for systems like life systems any given points to be lying on the strange attractor for that system and with that assumption to continue Lyapunov analysis to see whether the systems would lead to stability or instability.



0954 experiment described: The cluster began to spread out and loose focus, Lyapunov exponents positive separation, divergence. Instability. It turned into a dot then a blob. For certain kinds of attractors? What is that? The blob would quickly spread all over. Such attractors were efficient at mixing. Mixing? Bring notions of integration in a multicultural society, a social event where mixing between its guests is the goal of the host . In societies of nations, in world scene the mixing of cultures, there is quite a lot of mixing needed in the world. Has this anything to do with that? Attractors that are efficient mixers? Are attractors classified taken off the self for use in any occasion? A desired occasion? This kind of attractor leads to instability, separation divergence, however that effect is desirable in that particular case. Does that have significance in human life systems?

1007 the consequent effect of these tendencies is on the predictability factor. Divergence leads to unpredictability (spreading, positive), convergence to predictability (converging, negative). Predictability (representing order) is desired, unpredictability undesired (representing disorder). Attractors whether the spreading would only occur in one direction. Chaotic in one direction and orderly along another. The system had an orderly impulse and a disorderly together. And they were decoupling. Decoupling? One impulse led to unpredictability and the other kept time like a precise clock. Defined and measured. 1019 copy them in a notepad.

Visit our culture shop. Bargains galore

Pre-conceived ideas about the qualities, pre-fabricated notions of other cultures, for the members of other cultures. Off the self, over the counter, values offered, in the culture's one-shop for all merchandise. You have there, ready made, handy for you, for all occasions and all circumstances. Avoid these all-annoying tingling, fanciful thinking processes, time consuming, instead use easy to use solutions, ease your problems, guarantee success. Special discounts for our young clientèle. You can explain everything.

Each culture has its own all-in -one shop of off-the -self ideas about members of other cultures and each of us (has bought) must have experienced their effects.

In cultures that are comprised by a single predominant, this is not a problem. The problem arises when in a society there more than one influential cultures.
What then? Of course as each culture representative use its own culture corner shop (there would be problems) to purchase his off the shelf values, there would be a problems of various extent.
Do we need that? We need a culture shop, it gives continuity in our lives, it somehow blends with our disposition and may be, even our genetic make-up.

What we do not need are the off-the-self images about the members of other cultures. The stereotypes produced. It induces people to behave in ways alien to their true disposition.

Multicultural societies offer a great opportunity for a dominant culture to assimilate within it revised ideas in their stereotypes of members of other cultures as provided by the very same members of these cultures, malleated at the anvil of inter-cultural interactions and their significance is valuable to the creation of a harmonious world.

It is whenever you try to apply the model bought and it doesn't fit. What do you do then? You return the model to the shop and demand a refund? You demand another model that better deals with the situation encountered? Or ignore any discrepancies, dismiss them (as details) and continue to use the old ill-fitting model, ignoring any protests from the ill-fitted subject, and blaming that the subject portrayed malfunctions and not the model.
What is needed are initiatives as these, described by the aims in this KulturAXE website:
* Poverty alleviation by upgrading creative capacities and skills focusing on historically disadvantaged youth
* Promotion of a better understanding between South Africa and Europe as an initiative against stereotypes and prefabricated notions of cultural identity
* Detection and publicising creative potential
* Fostering of international exposure and mobility
* Building active intercultural networks between South Africa and Europe

Deconstruction: Supplement, originary lack, and invagination

The word supplement is taken from the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, who defined it as a thing which is not essential, it is extra to another thing which is complete in itself. It is not directly connected with what I started this search for, but it has a potential for driving you into another post.
Another aspect that intrigued me though, is; whether it defines the form of my exposition. Am I using deconstruction myself? Without being aware of? The whole thing appears to me as a waste of time. Though you do not know. May be through their studies they manage to shed light into some concepts. It is their use of words for an even finer description. Discriminating even deeper between neighbouring concepts.

Still I have to think about the urgency of that current task. Abstract!!, for the sake of progress or continue rambling for the sake of rambling.

"an inessential extra added to something complete in itself." According to Derrida, Western thinking is characterized by the "logic of supplementation," which is actually two apparently contradictory ideas. From one perspective, a supplement serves to enhance the presence of something which is already complete and self-sufficient. Thus, writing is the supplement of speech, Eve was the supplement of Adam, and masturbation is the supplement of "natural sex".

But simultaneously, according to Derrida, the Western idea of the supplement (there is the idea of deconstruction, taking it a little bit further, not satisfied with what is said and the explanation offered, employ other meanings too, meanings derived from other contexts and applying them in the current context. So, therefore in this case, applies the idea from the thing the supplement exists for, meaning that a thing that has a need of a supplement can not be complete by itself. In order to be complete it requires the supplement too) has within it the idea that a thing that has a supplement cannot be truly "complete in itself." If it were complete without the supplement, it shouldn't need, or long-for, the supplement. The fact that a thing can be added-to to make it even more "present" or "whole" (would the use of the word “whole” be significant? Is it specific or non-specific? In the sense of the whole as more than the sum of its parts?) that means that there is a hole (which Derrida called an originary lack) and the supplement can fill that hole. The metaphorical opening of this "hole" Derrida called "invagination." From this perspective, the supplement does not enhance something's presence, but rather underscores its absence.

Thus, what really happens during supplementation is that something appears from one perspective to be whole, complete, and self-sufficient, with the supplement acting as an external appendage. However, from another perspective, the supplement also fills a hole within the interior of the original "something." Thus, the supplement represents an indeterminacy between externality and interiority.

Deconstruction

Motorway traffic swarms.

"To stand back and look at the whole system, holistic approach, to understand how the system works, rather than break it into pieces" as I read it in Victor MacGill's Complexity Pages.

Let intuition take over, intelectualisation to its limits. (Are you sure that intuition is responsible here? Anyway, there it goes....)
"Chaos theory looks at how very simple things can generate very complex outcomes". The mention here of the workings of chaos does not discriminate on the simple things. It robs chaos of its process essence. And the simple things are the simple rules, or there is not a simple thing as such and the simplicity is derived by abstraction, and abstraction is a mental process we employ to make sense of the world around us. It is the right abstractions we should always use. By saying simple things, we employ abstraction too. But that abstraction is not helpful as it muddles up and leaves it unclear about what chaos is.

Motorway traffic swarms.

The example of the swarms, gives the essence of chaos as it traces its foundations. The rules, the simple rules which are: maintain a distance between itself and its neighbours and fly or swim in the average direction of its neighbours. From this alone the wonderful, swirling, complex patterns the birds or fish make are seen.
Look at that, like a spark traveling at lightning speed in my brain circuitry, elucidated, gave a clear projection, a clearer picture on an idea that was hovering around my mind for some time now. This involves motorway traffic and how to manage it. I always felt sorry to tens some times hundreds of stranded drivers in their cars in long queue of traffic especially during the morning and evening journeys back and forth to work.
I maintained that in order to avoid motorway pile-ups drivers had to keep a distance with the cars in front and rear, a distance which should be governed by braking speed and distance traveled once the brakes are applied. Safe braking distance in all and in essence. The term used in that website namely average speeds is what the acquired continuous speed might be too. So in order to have an acquired continuous speed of 40 miles/hour, the distance between any two cars in a column or lane it should be 36 metres or nine car lengths, for a 50 miles/hour 53 metres and at 60 miles/hour 73 metres at 70 miles/hour 96 metres. Though I fathomed the significance of a safe braking distance and somehow it was evident that by having an adequate distance between each traveling car, it would have allowed the traffic to pass through motorway traffic jams hotspots without braking speed maintaining an uninterrupted traffic flow without halting at any point through the hotspot. Even on motorway entry points where the rush traffic enters the motorway in droves. The distance kept by the drivers already in the motorway would have allowed incoming drivers to join the flow without braking speed by entering through the ample, wide windows in the traffic flow maintaining the momentum of the flow.
The number of cars allowed to join in, in a traffic flow window would be controlled by traffic lights, operating under swimming pool fun shoot rules, permitting a new batch of cars only if the cars in the batch before have cleared the entry way. Allowing only enough cars, according to the traffic flow from the junction (in cars/min or cars per minute) divided by an average car length to determine how many cars would be allowed in each traffic light interval. The number of cars allowed would be worked as minimum and maximum values, calculated from the parameters of cars/min traffic flow and car average length. Car average length will be calculated by taking an average from articulated lorries to motorbikes usage of the motorway traffic. Since it will take into account their contribution in the traffic it will be dynamically determined based on their traffic flow contribution. Let us work an example:
I have to think from the scratch. I should let some traffic expert to do that. Let us put down what are the parameters. There are two or three lanes traversing a motorway cross-section. So there is a set maximum of two or three cars traversing the cross-section in a given instance. Can this be set as the instantaneous speed? Would any notions of instantaneous speed be significant in these circumstances? What we are interested is cars per a unit of time. Do cars per unit of time resemble flow; let’s say of water, through a pipe’s cross-section? Water flow is designated as volume of water passing in a unit of time. Let us say 50 cm3/sec, which is 50cm3 of water passes through a cross-section in one second. Likewise in a motor way tract, replacing volume by number of cars in a unit of time, let that be minutes. Let us say 50 cars/min in blocks of two or three cars at any given instance. How can we calculate the number of cars passing through a cross-section assuming that we know the allocated speed, the car-to-car distance and the number of lanes? We should assume as well that traffic operates under saturated conditions. Let us say, maintaining a 40 miles/hour speed, then distance between cars should be 36 metres. We aspire to attain a quantity that has cars per unit of time units. The 36 metres car-to-car distance can be translated into car lengths. There are 9 car lengths for the 36 metres car-to-car distance. How can this be used to derive car/hour or car/min or cars/sec units? Traffic flow web search? Yes.

So if we speak about an average speed of 40 miles/hour traveling at a distance of 9 car lengths, let us say an average car length is 4 metres, then each car will occupy 9 + 1= 10 (itself) car lengths of the road or 40 metres. A distance of 40 metres would have one car, of 400 metres 10 cars, of 800 metres 20 cars and 1,000 metres 25 cars. So there will be 25 cars in one kilometre tract for each lane, times two, 50 cars for two lanes and times three, 75 cars for three lanes.

And each of these lanes flows at 40 miles/hour speed. How can this be used to find out the car flow from a given cross-section?

If it was 40 km/hour that means that in an hour that same column would extend for 40 kilometres it should have 40 times 75 equals 3000 cars (40X75= 3000) in one hour, and 3000 cars in 60 mins or 50 cars per minute, or 5 cars every 6 seconds or less than one car per second.

If it was 50 km/hour, a column extending for 50 kilometres it would include 50X75=3750 in one hour, 3750 in 60 mins or 62.5 cars per minute, or a slightly more than one car every second.

There are two issues to be considered. First the reaction rate of a driver, who is required to join the traffic without changing its average flow of cars, and second the length of the tract of the flow which will determine its success or not. For two lanes the cars accommodated 6,000 cars/hour and 9,000 cars/hour for the three lanes.

(Find out number of cars involved in a traffic jams. And the reaction time of a driver.)

There is the added bonus of how long it takes for some one to find its place in the traffic column without hindering the flow of the traffic. And another point which it should come out after I find the average reaction time, is the distance might be in need to increase to more than safe braking distance, to make it easier for the average driver to integrate in the flow of the traffic.